Men­sa del­e­ga­tions from 29 coun­tries delib­er­at­ed on how to encour­age smart chil­dren on 15 Octo­ber in Sofia. They came up with the idea to intro­duce les­sons in think­ing at school. A pilot project has already been launched at a school in Sofia in con­junc­tion with the Chess Fed­er­a­tion. Pupils in 8th to 12th forms will take enrich­ment class­es in chess and IQ tests once a week to devel­op log­i­cal think­ing and rea­son­ing. The organ­i­za­tion mulls over intro­duc­ing such les­sons in kin­der­gar­tens.

At present 600 men and wom­en are per­ma­nent mem­bers of Men­sa Bul­gar­ia, who have attained bril­liant scores at the intel­li­gence tests, said Wil­lem Bouw­ens Men­sa Inter­na­tion­al Chair­man. Over the recent two dec­ades, 4,000 Bul­gar­i­ans have tak­en the approved IQ tests. Of those, 600 have scored at or above the 98th per­cen­tile on cer­tain stand­ard­ized IQ tests, which makes them part of the inter­na­tion­al high-IQ soci­e­ty, said Galia Bojin­o­va, Vice Pres­i­dent of Men­sa-Bul­gar­ia.

Men­sa Inter­na­tion­al has 110,000 mem­bers. The larg­est nation­al group is Amer­i­can Men­sa, with more than 56,000 mem­bers, fol­lowed by Brit­ish Men­sa, with about 23,500 mem­bers and Ger­ma­ny, with 10,000. Accord­ing to the organ­i­za­tion, Fin­land boasts the larg­est num­ber of smart­est peo­ple per cap­i­ta. A nation­al Men­sa group is enti­tled to rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the Board of Direct­ors of Men­sa Inter­na­tion­al when it has at least 250 mem­bers in good stand­ing. In Mr. Wil­lem Bouw­ens' words, it is impos­si­ble to speak of more intel­li­gent or less intel­li­gent nations, as intel­li­gence occurs every­where.